The Boeing Co. is developing an unmanned helicopter at its Mesa location that could provide the company with a new, locally produced product line while changing the way wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are fought.

The Unmanned Little Bird is a modified MD 530F helicopter that's been in military service for 30 years. The small, agile aircraft is similar to those used by police departments around the globe.

Boeing has tested the helicopter for more than 100 hours during the past few months, with promising results. While Boeing has been sending up a pilot with the aircraft for each flight, the Little Bird normally is flown remotely from the ground with the pilot simply along for the ride.

Unmanned aerial vehicles have been of growing importance to the U.S. military because of the capability to carry out various objectives in dangerous areas without risking human life.

Most UAVs, or drones, have been developed from scratch, but Boeing took a different approach by retrofitting an existing vehicle. The result has been a quickened development process that could produce contracts only two years after project launch. Boeing officials say the remote operating technology also could be installed in the $20 million Apache Longbow helicopters used by the U.S. military and its allies.

The Apaches dominate Boeing's Mesa production facility, but the relatively inexpensive Little Birds (at about $2 million apiece with half the cost coming from sensor technology) could be on the assembly line in Mesa by the close of 2005. Boeing would fit the UAV kit onto existing aircraft.

Dino Cerchie, program manager on the Unmanned Little Bird project, said he's confident the U.S. military will be interested in the newly retooled aircraft for a number of reasons.

"Precision re-supply operations are probably the No. 1 attraction," he said. "It can also be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relay and also be equipped with weapons."

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were in mind when developing the UAV, which still can be traditionally piloted.

"We're looking to fill a void over there," he said. "We're trying to make it safer for the soldiers."

Cerchie also said there are a number of noncombat applications for the aircraft.

He used the Chernobyl nuclear disaster as an example of how the Unmanned Little Birds could save lives. Several helicopter pilots died from radiation exposure after working to clean up Chernobyl.

Cerchie said Boeing was so confident in the potential of the Little Birds that it funded the project with its own research dollars as opposed to being asked by the government to develop something.

Boeing officials would not say specifically how much R&D money was going into the program but that it's "significant" and they expect to land government contracts from it.

"We really see this as a market void," he said. "We are using an existing air frame with 30 years of engineering development and a proven safety record."

The helicopter's flight path can be completely controlled from the ground by using software designed to navigate the aircraft. Cameras on the Little Bird also are controlled from the ground.

"All you have to do is tell it where to go, you don't actually have to fly it from the ground with a stick and a throttle," Cerchie said. "You can control it from a laptop PC and be more than 100 miles away from it depending on the antenna."

Mark Hardesty, a Boeing flight test engineer working on the project, said the Unmanned Little Bird can go higher than the reach of many weapons and the auto-pilot mode is as capable as the best pilot -- better in some circumstances.

"It never gets tired," he said. "And the point of this whole thing is persistent surveillance."

The prospect of Boeing landing a contract for the Unmanned Little Birds seems good considering the near-perfect results of testing, coupled with increased spending by the Department of Defense. Criticism of the unarmored or under-armored Humvees in Iraq also may push the DOD to look at other ways to keep soldiers out of harm's way.

Dyke Weatherington, U.S. Department of Defense Deputy for Air Warfare, said UAVs are supporting troops in a wide range of mission capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Weatherington said both small and tactical UAVs are in demand within the military for a number of reasons.

"Small UAVs provide extended visual range to increase situational awareness of the local area, rather than putting foot patrols into high-threat areas," he said. "UAVs with weapons provide a tactical commander the ability to respond immediately to high-value targets without waiting for strike assets to appear."

Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio science and technology think tank, predicts that research and development spending by the federal government will increase nearly

6 percent over 2004 levels to $98 billion in 2005. Its annual R&D Funding Forecast names the DOD as the primary reason behind the federal government's increase in funding.

Battelle Senior Researcher Jules Duga said the DOD will continue to be interested in UAV technology, particularly because of conflicts the U.S. military is currently engaged in.

"The technology has great potential because of the lowered cost of manpower," he said. "It's a need that's been recognized by large and small firms, and UAVs make economic and patriotic sense."